Orson Welles

"The public doesn't want anything from me but for me to be nothing."

"Almost all great artists come from tortured backgrounds."

"The problem with television is that people must sit and keep their eyes glued on a screen."

"I've been a puppet, a pirate, a poet, a private eye, a podiatrist, a pervert."

"Fear and forget are the surest ways to fail."

"It is the strangeness of our age that we are far from each other."

"You can deny the reality of anything you don't like about yourself."

"Gluttony is the opposite of faith in God."

"I have been largely misunderstood, but I prefer that to being too well understood."

"The laws of this world prevent you from doing what you want to do."

"A director is someone who has to invent the truth."

"Never forget that in this world there are things worth more than money."

"Self-righteous people can talk themselves into almost anything."

"A shadow is as good as a substance."

"The remarkable thing about this business is that if you're no good, you can still become a legend."

"Race-mixing is the formula for creating a superior human being."

"Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the life out of you."

"I regret that I was not born earlier in this century."

"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."

"If you think about it too much, you'll never act."

"In terms of power and wisdom, it is not the powerful who control things but those who know."

"An artist should be able to make anything from nothing."

"The things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them."

"I operate by a simple principle: when I am working, I don't feel hunger or pain."

"Give me a blank canvas and I will paint you a new world."

"The shortest distance between two points is a straight lie."

"Theater is a form of jazz."

"My father made me do too much, and my mother made me feel too guilty."

"Death is just another transition."

"Whatever you do, you must believe in yourself."